Dog replica puppet

Hi everyone!
Im building a replica of my dog in puppet form.I know it sounds crazzy,but I just had to do it.

My dog is small so right away I knew it would have to be a rod puppet or marionette if I wanted it life size.I chose the rod puppet method due to my lack of good marionette manipulation.I had already made a mouth mechanism and decided to use it for this build.It consist of a flat wooden rod with a top stationary piece.The bottom ''Jaw'' is henged with a spring return.

I kind of made a game of it with my dog while I was doing measurements.It was a lot of fun...mostly for him.I got the basic size and shape drawn down.After that I gave my dog a break and began to make a cardboard peice by using the drawing of the torso . I then cut slits In the card board.I made rectangular pieces and slid them in to get a 3d shape.I used pastic bags to fill in the sides and fastened it with tape.I wraped it with a plastic bag as a realease.

Youre probuably wondering what the purpose of that was...It basicly made a positive mold for my paper mache clay to go on.I used the recipe for paper mache clay at ultimatepapermache.com with out flowwer.But before I aplied that to the mold I used plaster cloth as the first layer,then I used a thin layer of the paper mache.It worked perfecly.The legs were sculpted seperately.

So...you can see my exspectations are pretty high for this puppet.Should I lower them?
I want this puppet to look alot like my dog,and want it fairly realistic.Is their anything you think I did wrong.Is my aproach to this build insane or what?I have watched Dave privet's whole series on puppet making and found it verry helpful,but I will ofcourse have to change the rules to suite my needs for this puppet.As far as performance wich Im sure youre wondering aboute ,Ill probuably be using him for church on a stage,and also youtube videos.I will be taking pictures and posting them of the build
Any help or coments are appreciated
thank you

That's what I used to learn how to do it and the puppet wound up coming out really well! My only suggestion not in the video is to make a tab w/finger hole so that you can move the mouth and the lids at the same time.

As for the tail, I think that you can use one of those snake toys for little kids. You know, the ones made out wood w/all of the little slits in it so that it can move and bend. Put an eye bolt in the end of the snake. I think that you can then make a tail shaped sleeve and place the snake inside of it so that it can bend. Then cut a small slit where the bolt is so that it can slip through the fur tail sleeve. Then you can just attach a rod to the bolt to manipulate it. Not 100% sure that it will work, but it is a start.

Thank you!verry clevver idea about the tail Ill have to try it!Allso Im not sure if I could use ping pong balls ,because they need to be about the size of a small marble...Also I tried this tutorial out on a different puppet and it worked great,so thank you alot!

Also I will take some pictures and post,but sometimes I feall vulnerable aboute my work untill its finished ...haha, still I will